Visual storytelling at large, whether in a personal or business context, has been stagnated for many years now. The prominent technological tool that most people use to give presentations or visual stories is the same one they used twenty years ago: POWERPOINT™ or other equivalent “slide deck” software. While this technology was an improvement over the overhead slide and projectors of the past, this approach has been the subject of much criticism because of its low density of information, use of unpleasing fonts and clip arts, and the propensity of its users to deploy “chart junk.” Data in such presentations is static and is typically not linked to the source. To reflect any change in the underlying source, one generally must repeat the entire workflow required to generate the presentation (usually using manual steps). This process is slow and error-prone. In addition, this process discourages people from using more data or even updating the data they have already used.
In recent years, video sharing web sites, such as YOUTUBE™ and VIMEO™ have added to the entertainment value of visual communication; however, these technological shifts have not increased the information density in any significant way. In addition, video's insatiable need for bandwidth, the prevalent use of lossy video compression codecs, and the lack of pixel-perfect transfer turn out to be serious obstacles for use of video for visual communication of quantitative data.
At the same time, the amount of data and content available is exploding exponentially. Problem solving today requires harnessing the information gems hidden within large amounts of data. To keep up with this growth, expert technicians use advanced analytic techniques (to collect data and compute patterns) and sophisticated visualization techniques (to see the patterns and show them to others). A large collection of analytic software has been introduced to address this need; however, these tools are generally unavailable, incomprehensible, or cost prohibitive for most users since their use requires deep knowledge of logic, statistics, and mathematics beyond the capabilities of a broad spectrum of users in addition to be cost prohibitive.
In addition, once the data is analyzed, the data needs to be processed by professional “info-graphics” technicians using advanced video and sound production processes to create a compelling visual presentation. For example, to produce a professional-grade data-rich movie, one has to combine the skills of analysts, statisticians, computer scientists, graphic artists, and movie production crew. At the high end, data-rich documentaries, such as “An Inconvenient Truth” cost as much as $1M or more to produce. Even small programs, such as Hans Rosling's “Joy of Stats” cost thousands of dollars to produce. Not only are these visual presentations expensive to make, but the essence of the original story gets lost as it is stretched through the different processes, skill sets, and people.